Tag, You're It
by i'm a quitter
Summary: The Joker breaks out of Arkham Asylum with the assistance of the morbidly lovely and slightly insane Harley Quinn.


Cooked this idea up a while ago... I put it up on another profile, but my email for that one got deleted and now I can't sign on. Awesome. So yeah, here it is on this profile. :)

* * *

The Joker was sitting in his cell, bored out of his mind. He always was; always sitting, always bored. _Allwaaaayyyysssss._ He thought about random things, stupid things, funny things, but they never seemed to hold his attention for long.

Thinking was great and all, but he preferred quick thinking. When you had to think on your feet and fly by the seat of your pants (the Joker found himself unable to _not_ giggle at that expression) your ideas were more creative. Because you don't have time to think it through. You don't have time to over-analyze or perfect or _plan_.

He hated planning.

Well, even _he_ planned from time to time. He'd planned on blowing up Gotham General – that's why he'd planted the explosives. He planned on getting the hell out of Arkham Asylum, though how he was going to go about that was yet to be determined. That part he hadn't quite planned yet.

Structured plans! Yes, _those_ kinds of plans were for the frightened; when something unexpected happened, the masses went into an uproar, screaming and hollering and thrashing about like caged beasts.

Much as they were now. The Joker frowned and scrambled to his feet and began screaming and hitting his bars too, wondering what all the commotion was about. And then he saw – if he craned his head just so and looked out of his peripheral vision – he saw _her_.

It was slow progress, but for the past eight months that he'd had scheduled sessions with her, he'd been trying to get her to see his ways. Not so that she could scribble it on paper and toss it into a dusty cabinet until the next day. What fun was letting the world know how his mind worked? He wanted her to maybe, one day, join him.

He was a man, after all, with needs and urges. And Dr. Harleen Quinzel had a body _made_ for sin. And she _fucking_ knew it! It was evident from the clothing she wore, to the way she carried herself when she knew that he was watching her, to the smooth sway of her hips, to the wanton expression she threw over her shoulder as he bent her over the table and lifted her skirt from behind…

The Joker's train of thought derailed as he saw another figure in front of Harleen slump to the ground. It was then that he realized she was holding a bloody dagger in one of her hands. The light hit the blade at just the right angle, making it look perfectly clean, but the drips that fell to the floor were obvious, if only to his careful eye. She stood in exactly the same pose; dagger held high in the air, eyes wide, mouth open and chest rising and falling as she panted lightly.

He couldn't help himself. He laughed.

He knew his Harley well by now, and it seemed that this was her second or perhaps third kill. If not for the fact that there were more guards before the one that had just fallen, then for the fact that she wasn't crying or throwing up or even cringing.

But the vision that his mind conjured for that particular situation only made him laugh harder, his voice rising until it was his signature cackle. Many times he'd been given tranquilizers when the guards or the nice young men in the clean white coats heard that laugh. They thought his laugh meant that he had done something. They never bothered to ask what that something might've been. Sometimes it was as simple as his foot falling in the toilet and making him fall as he tried reaching the vents. Unfortunately, he'd been too short…

When his laughter finally subsided, he looked up and saw Harley standing in front of his cell door. The dagger hung limply in her left hand, while she twirled an enormous ring of keys in the other, quite obviously bored.

"Someone will hear the commotion," she said, raising her voice so he'd hear her over said chaos. "They'll come, they'll see what I did…"

The Joker knew, very well, that Harley didn't want to be locked up in Arkham Asylum. What she seemed to fear most was being alone, and while she'd have plenty of deranged criminals in her view, she'd be very much alone if she were to get caught and thrown into the empty cell to his left. And where else were they going to send a bipolar, homicidal therapist with post traumatic stress syndrome? "So, uh" – the Joker licked his lips – "maybe you wanna hurry up."

"Maybe I don't."

"I think you do."

"You don't know a fucking thing about me," she hissed, leaning into the bars to glare at him.

_Big_ mistake, on her part.

He grabbed her throat and slammed her head into the bars, chuckling at the dazed look on her face. She blinked rapidly, possibly trying to clear away the stars. Though, to her credit, she still managed to keep the keys _just_ out of reach. Bitch.

"I know you better than anyone, Har-LEEN," he said, drawing out her name. Though he normally called her Harley, he used her full name – in this instance – to let her know that he wasn't joking around right now. Well, not the way he usually did. He squeezed her throat to get his point across. "I know that you've got voices, screaming in your head. I'll bet they're telling you that you want what I have. You don't want the crap you have or the crap that you've been given or the crap that you've yet to get. What I have is freedom."

"Really," she managed to rasp. "You look pretty caged to me."

With an annoyed twist of his mouth, he shoved her away from the bars, intending to slam her face into them again. But she was fast, pulling up her other hand and slicing his arm with the knife. He drew back with a hiss that soon became a chuckle and finally became loud, barking laughter. "I hurt you, you hurt me… it's a vicious circle, Harley Quinn. But we don't have to, you know. Go back and forth, that is."

"Yes we do," she said, panting lightly and rubbing her throat. "And we always will. Just like you and the Batman."

The Joker stiffened at that. He didn't _like_ being reminded that the Batman hadn't changed one bit since their last encounter. Sure, he was technically a fugitive now, but the Joker knew damn well that it was because he'd taken the blame for everything that Harvey Two-Face had done.

In the Joker's book, that was a noble thing to do.

And nobility could _suck_ it.

It was all because he was still in this _damn_ asylum. It wasn't like he had anyone to carry on his work in his absence. It seemed, at least to him, that true masterminds were in short supply these days. Perhaps that was why Harley was drawn to him. Despite the fact that she was a doctor of sorts, the Joker had found that she liked to take orders rather than give them. Apparently thinking for herself just wasn't one of her things.

He didn't mind. It that was one of the reasons that he was drawn to her. Her body was the biggest reason, naturally. But mostly he was drawn to her because – and if she didn't possess this redeeming quality, then even her body wouldn't've appealed to him quite so much – she was unpredictable.

And her unpredictability made her creative.

And her creativity made her _funny_. He liked things that were funny, because life was too short to live with a permanent scowl. Instead, he felt that one should live with a permanent smile, and truly _live_. That was the difference between himself and the Bat.

Red lights inside the hall began flashing, and a deafening siren began blaring. Harley stopped twirling the keys. The time for their witty banter and playful ways was almost up. Or, depending on whether or not Harley let him the hell out, maybe it was just about to begin.

Deciding that his wound wasn't fatal or even particularly painful, the Joker stopped examining his arm and pressed his face against the bars, offering her a winning smile. "You're gonna let me out," he chimed in a sing-song voice. It wasn't a command, but rather, a stated fact.

"I will," she said, twirling the keys in her fingers. "And I don't just mean out of this cell." As she unlocked his cell door, she gave him a grin that was every bit as hair-raising as his own. "Admit it, Jay; you like the way we are. It's fun for you."

That, it was. When the door was open, he skipped out and high-fived Jonathan Crane's face, which happened to be pressed as far in between the bars as he could get it, the nosy bastard. He yelped like a dog that'd gotten a rough slap on the nose and the Joker giggled. Looking down the hall, he saw uniformed guards racing towards them, hesitating when they saw just who it was that had escaped.

_Set free_, he corrected mentally. He was one to give credit where credit was due. Although, he would've escaped months ago if he hadn't been waiting on this slow bitch. He giggled delightedly at the obvious fear that the guards radiated, jumping up and down and clapping.

He reached behind him and pulled Harley into his arms, but the cool blade of the knife gently pressed under his chin stopped him from actually kissing her. They were close enough for him to do it, but the Joker didn't move, smirking as he dared her with his eyes to do it. He didn't want to provoke her into doing it. That was no fun. He wanted her to do it because she wanted to end his life, not because she feared for her own.

The guards shouted as they surrounded the two, but the screams of the inmates and the blare of the sirens made it hard to decipher what the guards were saying. Not that what they might be saying mattered much to him. Harley's eyes held a hint of panic as she glanced around at them.

The Joker leaned in at an achingly slow pace, breathing in her ear. "Wanna learn how to _really_ use this thing, Harley?"

She snorted, but he certainly heard the interest in her tone. "You'd… teach me?"

"Like a lion teaches it's cub how to hunt," he replied. "Though, I prefer to think of you as my little harlequin whore rather than my offspring."

They stood still for a moment, and the Joker could practically hear the gears in her blonde little head turning. Finally, she pulled away from him and twisted the knife with a flick of her wrist, presenting him with the handle. With a smirk, she kissed his nose and took a step away. "Tag, you're it."


End file.
